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GROUNDWORK

Centuries of Irish history are woven through the lives of two families, with distinctly mixed results, in this US debut from poet and critic Welch. Although threads of the story go back to the 16th century and bloody encounters between Irish clans and their English “masters,” the bulk of narrative focuses on early 20th-century events involving the Condons and the O’Dwyers. As the century begins, Mary O’Dwyer, fresh from secretarial school, finds a job with the prosperous merchant family Holmes, and soon draws the eye of the family scion. Later, pregnant by him, she’s forced by his father to leave Cork to have the baby in England, and goes into exile with Jim Condon, a happy-go-lucky chauffeur and streetcar driver who’s smitten with her. Mary leaves Jim after she finds him frolicking with the landlady, but he follows her back to Cork, marrying her and having several more children with her. Jim becomes a drunk and goes blind, however, leaving Mary no choice but to return to the Holmes firm to find work for eldest son Michael, who is in fact Holmes’s son, although Michael doesn’t know it. He becomes a trusted employee, but tragedy hangs on him like a shroud: Though trusted, he never rises in the firm; he never learns who he is until he’s suffered years of increasing abuse from his real father, also an alcoholic; he doesn’t marry until late in life, and then watches mutely as his only child dies from diphtheria. Michael’s brother and sister also fail to prosper, with Con opting for the monastery just as two Jewish brothers, impressed by his abilities, are ready to stake him in his own business, and with Katherine marrying a factory worker, trading her bright future for a stifling domestic life. The family weave on view here, strong and sincere at its best, still isn’t enough to hold these many disparate fragments together.

Pub Date: April 17, 1998

ISBN: 0-85640-608-2

Page Count: 202

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1998

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.

"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

Pub Date: June 15, 1951

ISBN: 0316769177

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951

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MAGIC HOUR

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.

Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

Pub Date: March 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-345-46752-3

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005

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